Experiment on Effects of Tiredness on Playing the Violin

Experiment Aim: To determine if I play the violin better when I am tired or when I am not exposed to much activity yet. Playing the violin better, meaning that my intonation and overall sound is good, as well as feeling relaxed and comfortable while playing.

Hypothesis: I play the violin better after a long and tiring day at school, especially after strings practices.

Experiment 1: 7 July 2008 (Youth Day school holiday)
I woke up at 8am. After eating breakfast, I did my violin practice at 8.30am. Scales seemed alright at first because I chose to "close one ear". But after a while, I got irritated by the out-of-tuneness and started the process of fine tuning my technique. After struggling past scales, I went on to pieces. Gavotte en Rondeau was horrible. My e-string has a problem. Sometimes, it doesn't produce a sound when I cross from >Bb (a-string) to e-string (E open). That got me fed up. My bow didn't feel right and hence I played it horribly. Legende was much better because it was slower and more relaxing, allowing me to cool down. Intonation was better and bow felt alright. Double-stops picked up the pace and I started the vicious cycle again. Czardas was not that good either. Beginning was not good as I was already annoyed with my fingers so I couldn't shift around so easily. Slammed the violin back in it's case after overshooting my quota of 1 hour by 15mins.

Experiment 2: 8 July 2008 (normal day at school, played the violin during pure humans and reached home at 7pm)
Ate dinner before doing practice as there wasn't enough time to complete violin practice part 1 before dinner. Scales were good. Allowed myself to warm up by closing half an ear. After that, double stop scales were good too. Feeling a sense of achievement, I went on to Gavotte en Rondeau. It was good by my standards. Double stops and intonation were good and smooth. Had the same e-string problem but then I remembered what ms kwok said, "if the string doesn't produce the sound, don't stop-it's ok. Just continue." So I didn't get that irritated. Legende went alright. Double stops were slightly out of tune, but not that bad. Overall-good. Czardas, sigh sigh sigh. I think I lost concentration. Spiccato was not that smooth. After some polishing, it improved. I always only end my practice after I get the ending perfect a few times. I felt happy most of the practice and overshot my quota by half an hour.

Conclusion: Being slightly tired does help me play better. However, the ABRSM website's practice tips states "don't practice when you're tired". Now, I'm slightly confused over whether I'm normal or not. Just experimenting once for each case is not that accurate. Therefore, I shall have private experiments 2 more times after a tiring day and another 2 when I'm not tired. Then, I will come up with my final conclusion for the whole experiment.